‘I’ll set up a search,’ said Gil. ‘I need to let the Provost hear of this, since we’ll have to have an inquest on the dead woman, try to find a name for her, find out how she came to be at the Cross. Will I borrow some men from him, or will we use Cathedral servants to search?’
‘To search?’ Canon Henderson frowned. ‘What kind o a search did you have in mind? Rattling at doors, or looking under bushes, or searching outbuildings?’
‘All three, I’d say.’
‘Aye, you’re right, I suppose. She could be anywhere in Glasgow, and dead or alive come to that. Better see what the Provost can do, our men haveny the same powers outside St Mungo’s land.’ A child wailed, elsewhere in the house, and the Canon glanced at the maidservant and gestured at the door. ‘Away and deal wi that bairn, Kirsty, and see if you canny keep it quieter.’
‘Takes after his faither,’ retorted Kirsty with a toss of her head, but left the room with reluctance.
‘Tell me it again,’ said the Canon. ‘Annie Gibb was bound to the cross wi a new rope, and it’s been untied and tied again, you say.’ Gil nodded. ‘So someone freed her, and throttled this woman to put in her place.’ He crossed himself. ‘Wickedness! What would make anyone act that way? And her friends never saw a thing?’
‘Not till they came to untie her in the morning,’ agreed Gil. ‘It makes little sense. We’ve two problems, I think. Who is the corpse, and how did she die and come to be bound to the cross, and where is Annie Gibb and who freed her?’
‘That’s more than two,’ Henderson said fretfully. He took a draught of milk, emerging from the beaker with a white moustache. ‘Well, you sort it out, Gil. If you need folk to help you, likely some o the songmen would be glad o a change of duties. Sim and Craigie are already involved, you can ask them. And the vergers are aye useful men in a stushie, the younger ones at least, though I hope it’ll no come to that.’
‘So do I,’ agreed Gil.
‘Away and speak to the Provost. He’ll need to hear about it all, I suppose.’
‘I was looking for you to call by,’ said Maister Andrew Otterburn, depute Provost of Glasgow, waving at a stool beside his desk. Gil raised an eyebrow. ‘Aye, I’ve heard about it. Andro brought the word in earlier. Did you ever?’
‘Extraordinary business.’ Gil sat down. Socrates sprawled at his feet, grinning up at Otterburn.
‘Tell me about it, then. What have you discerned?’
‘Very little. The women have the corp stripped now. She’s much of an age with their kinswoman, thin as a lath, has probably borne at least one child so Dame Ellen says. How do they tell that?’
Otterburn glanced at him, but said only, ‘Likely some women’s knowledge. Ask at your wife, I should.’
Perhaps not, thought Gil.
‘We’ve no idea yet what killed her, unless the beating,’ he went on, ‘let alone who she is or how she came to be there. As for where Mistress Annie Gibb might have got to, that’s anyone’s guess. St Mungo’s isny best pleased about the matter.’
‘I’ll wager.’ Otterburn glanced out of the window at the cathedral towers, visible above the warm sandstone outer wall of the castle. He was a lanky man in his forties with a long gloomy face and a wry sense of humour; he was not fully appreciated in the burgh, but Gil had found him easier to work with than his predecessor. ‘Let Walter have a description of the corp-’ His clerk looked up from the end of the desk and nodded, his pen pausing in its eternal squeaking progress. ‘He’ll get her cried round the town, see if anyone’s missed her. Now tell me what you’ve found, maister, and what you’re doing about it.’
Gil obeyed, summarising the little information they had gathered so far.
‘I’ve yet to speak wi the rest of Mistress Gibb’s family or friends,’ he ended. ‘I thought you’d as soon hear about it now rather than later. Young Lowrie’s talked wi the servants, but all he’s learned so far confirms what the family says. They all arrived together, they seem to ha stayed within the hostel walls, other than Mistress Shaw’s two young kinsmen and two fellows that were sent out on an errand for the doctor and were back within the half-hour, until Mistress Gibb was led out wi the whole household, save Sir Edward and his man, to go to St Mungo’s for confession. I’ll set Lowrie to track down the bystanders from this morning and find out if they know anything, and my man Euan’s away to talk the vergers into searching St Mungo’s, but I’m not hopeful.’
‘Aye.’ Otterburn turned the sand-pot on his desk, frowning at it. ‘So the one we have was beaten till she’s beyond recognising, and slain some way we don’t know yet. Could the beating ha killed her?’
‘It might,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘Pierre found no trace of a head injury, but we won’t know for sure till she softens. There’s no sign she was stabbed or the like.’
Otterburn grunted.
‘And then she was throttled, but no till after she was dead, and then she was tied to the Cross. Why? It makes no sense! And where’s the other one got to?’
‘I’d say she was tied to the Cross first, and then throttled,’ said Gil. ‘The hair at the back of her neck was caught under the cord, but the rest hung free. And at some point the sacking gown Annie Gibb was wearing was put on her.’
‘Is it the same one?’
‘I need to check wi St Mungo’s.’
‘So is Mistress Gibb running about Glasgow in her shift? She’ll be easy enough recognised if that’s so. How mad is she? Is she a danger?’
‘Her friends say not. She seems to be melancholy rather than wood-wild. And she may well be in her shift, I got her maidservant to check and her clothes are all in the pilgrim lodging where the lassie put them last night, naught missing.’
Otterburn grunted again.
‘Give Walter her description and all. We’ll get the two o them cried through the town and see what that turns up, and you can ask at Andro for any help you need. The men should enjoy searching for a stinking lady in her shift. Have you any more to tell me?’
‘Not yet,’ admitted Gil, ‘but I’ve another question.’ He drew from his purse the coil of cord, and laid it on the Provost’s desk. ‘This is what was used to throttle the dead woman. The Shaw servants never saw it afore, so far as they can tell. Can we learn aught from it, do you think?’
‘Cord’s just cord, surely,’ said Otterburn, lifting a honey-pale loop. ‘This doesny look anything out of the ordinar.’
‘A barrel’s just a barrel,’ countered Gil, ‘but I once learned a lot about one barrel by speaking to its maker. Most craftsmen can make their own cordage if they’re put to it, but this looks like a specialist’s work. Do we have any spinners of twine and cord in the burgh?’
‘Walter?’
‘You might ask at Matt Dickson the rope-drawer, maister,’ suggested the clerk. ‘It’s mostly heavier stuff he turns out, so I believe, but he’d likely ken where that came from.’ He assessed Gil’s blank expression. ‘Away out the Thenewgate, almost at Partick. A great long shed o a place, been burned down two-three times. You canny miss it.’
Like most major offices around a great cathedral church, that of Almoner to St Mungo’s was a sinecure, a post whose holder was not expected to take more than a perfunctory interest in its duties. These were carried out by the Sub-Almoner, a depressed individual who inhabited a cramped, sour-smelling chamber up a stair in the northwest tower, surrounded by piles of neatly folded clothing and blankets. When Gil found him there, Sir Alan Jamieson was just dismissing the last of his morning’s supplicants, a surprisingly well-nourished boy of eight or nine.
‘No, no, wee Leckie’s fit enough,’ he said when Gil commented. ‘He’s the laddie that’s paid of the burgh to lead old Jeanie Thomson, that’s been blind these ten year. He was fetching another head-rail to her, to keep her decent, seeing her last one blew away when her neighbour laid it out to dry.’ He pulled a face. ‘That’s their tale, any road. I just hope they got its worth at the rag market. What can I do for you, Gil? I take it this isny a call on my duties?’